


Heartbeat

by FireSoul



Series: Captain Canary Week 2018 [7]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, CCweek2018, Destiny, F/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-06-23 08:02:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15601929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireSoul/pseuds/FireSoul
Summary: Leonard's been wondering about that heartbeat on his wrist for a very long time, but he still wasn't prepared to find the person it belongs to.





	Heartbeat

For the first time in a long time Leonard can’t bear to look down at his wrist.

His soul mark has almost always been a soothing thing for him, a source of comfort, to know that no matter how bad things got there was someone out there who would love him. The best description he’s ever heard for soul marks would be that of they look like someone hooked up a heart monitor to an Etch-a-Sketch. It’s a little faint line, gray and located just below the pulse point on the wrist of his dominant hand. The spikes of it move through the course of the line but never disappear, ever, and show him the heartbeat of his soul mate.

Some people are born with their marks, though it’s also common for that to not be the case. Those who are born without their marks aren’t supposed to worry, as they usually show up within the first five years of life.

That was not the case for Leonard.

He turned five, then he turned six, and seven and eight, but his mark still hadn’t shown up.

Not having a soul mate, that’s a rarity. It’s something believed to only be reserved for the most damned of souls, and nobody knows why. Regardless it was a favorite punishment of Lewis’s, his father just loved to grab him by the wrist and remind him there was no one out there who loved him. But one day when he was fifteen that all changed.

He still remembers the moment he noticed, the hope exploding in his chest. He had been falling asleep in sophomore English class for crying out loud, when he’d decided to pick up a pencil and try to at least look like he was taking notes. In doing so the fabric of his sleeve had caught on the edge of the desk and pulled his cuff back just enough that it exposed a sliver of skin on his wrist, and he saw it. After a few seconds of just gawking at it, his heart hammering in his chest, he’d promptly sprung up and informed the teacher that he _really_ needed to use the bathroom. He’d then gone there as quickly and inconspicuously as he could managed and locked himself in a stall, shoving his sleeve out of the way so that he could see if what he believed was true.

It was.

There it was, a little gray line, with jagged V’s both upside-down and right-side-up moving throughout it’s duration. He couldn’t believe it; he did have a soul mate.

He’d told Mick that day, even if they didn’t normally do feelings, and Mick was the one to sway him from telling Lewis. His plan had been to rub his father’s face in it, but Mick brought up the very good point that Lewis was the type of man to somehow twist this around and use it as torture. So instead he had gone to a drugstore and shoplifted some concealer from the make-up aisle, just to wear at home.

He got into a habit of pulling out a flashlight on nights when he couldn’t sleep, watching the steady heartbeat of his soul mate until he was lulled into a peaceful unconsciousness.

He went on like that for years. Watching that line on his wrist got him through countless trips to both Juvie and prison, not to mention the remaining time that he lived with Lewis. Whenever things were tough he could always rely on that heartbeat, the assurance that his soul mate was out there.

For the most part the line was the same, steady, rhythm of a calm heart. He noticed that it wasn’t particularly uncommon for it to start moving faster at certain times of the day, especially as the years went on, and so he concluded that whoever his soul mate is they must be fairly active. Sometimes when he was locked up and had nothing else to do he would lie on his bunk pretending to read, but really he would be trying to guess what it was his soul mate was doing that got their heart beating so fast. It had to be some kind of sport, he concluded, as even when racing the line of his mark was still steady, and the increased speed only lasted for an hour or two at a time. That’s how it was, for years, until one week it wasn’t.

He wasn’t concerned that the line had stopped moving fast, that could be easily explained. The fact that it was far slower moving than normal was what had him worried. As he watched it at night, trying to fall asleep on his prison bunk, he found himself holding his breath after one beat finished, the next one following too long after.

If only he could have known it was just the beginning.

Following that week the line did pick back up to steady, and then so fast he was worried, then steady, slow, fast, faster, slower, etc. His soul mate’s heartbeat had become impossible to predict, and he couldn’t for the life of him figure out what could be the cause. He was always worried about it to some extent, but eventually this became the new normal for his mark. Unpredictable, but always there, always beating.

Until one day it wasn’t.

He’d gotten into the habit of looking at it in the mornings, to make sure it wasn’t concernedly low or fast, not that he had any idea what he might do if it were. So he pulled up his sleeve in his morning routine, and felt his own heart freeze.

The line was straight.

He just stared at it for an immeasurable amount of time, holding his breath and waiting for the little v’s to come crawling their way through the line, but they never came. They were gone; his soul mate was dead.

Mick was the only person he told, as he had gone through the same torment years ago. He’d tried his best to comfort Mick back then, but now he knew something like this hurt far deeper than he ever could have imagined. He lived with the pain for over a year, assumed he would live with it all his life, until one day whilst he was in the shower his mark caught his eye, and he froze.

It was beating.

The v patterns were appearing steadily, like they had for so many years. Somehow, his soul mate was alive.

So, why is he having such a hard time bringing himself to look down at his wrist now, if his soul mate is in fact alive?

It’s because he thinks he might have finally found her.

They’ve only been on The Waverider for a few weeks, their latest attempt to stop Savage ending in them getting their asses handed to them yet again. This time was worse than any of the other’s though, for Sara at least, and she’s currently unconscious in the med bay and hooked up to a heart monitor; the display on the screen a perfect match to the one on his wrist.

It all makes sense.

He was fifteen when his mark finally appeared, the same number of years that are between the two of them. The periodic quickening of her heart at specific times of the day that only increased as the years went on, it coincides perfectly with a schedule of the dance lessons she’s said she took as a child and into varsity sports during the same years she would’ve been in high school. The period that the heartbeat on his wrist became unpredictable is the exact same as when she said she was on that boat. The year she was dead the same that his mark went flat, and the mirror image now.

It can’t not be her.

He used to think about the day he’d meet his soul mate, but after everything he had stopped truly believing the day would ever come. Now that he’s here, now that she’s here, he isn’t sure if he should do anything about it.

* * *

 

Sara has suspected for a while now that Snart might be her soul mate. She gets along better with him than she does with anyone else on this ship, not that that is sufficient evidence to put him has her soul mate. Her first real clue came one night during their third round of war, when they stumbled onto the topic of marks and he mentioned his didn’t appear until he was in high school, and she casually mentioned that she isn’t such a rare case, as she was born with hers.

But if he was in high school and there are fifteen years between them… the math checks out.

That was her first clue, her second came later, after a mission gone south landed her in the med bay. Suddenly he avoided the topic of marks at any and all costs, as well as picked up a habit of throwing his cards down with his left hand. He also started reaching for their shared bottles of whiskey, the glasses, basically anything that ever involved him moving his hand within close proximity to her, all with his left hand. It was like he didn’t want to risk the cuff of his right sleeve moving even an inch, like he didn’t want her seeing his mark.

The thing that cinched it for her, though, was the engine room.

They were freezing, too cold to move and huddling together for whatever warmth they could manage. With her head pressed to his chest and hands curled into the fabric of his sweater she had taken notice her own mark had begun to move slowly, much slower than she had ever seen it before, and in perfect sync with the sound of Leonard’s heartbeat against her ear.

“Leonard,” her voice had come out in a weak rasp, and he barely hummed in acknowledgment. They were minutes from death, if they even had that long, and she needed to know.

Then, as if on cue, Ray fixed the hole.

They never talked about it, not really. They were silent as they let their limbs thaw and the next thing she knew they were facing Mick’s betrayal. After everything was said and done and Mick was gone Leonard came to her room that night, looking utterly defeated, and there was a silent understanding that passed between them at the door.

He knew.

She knew.

He would only come in if she wanted him to.

She did.

After that night they found themselves in some odd in-between sort of relationship. They each knew what they were supposed to be to one another, they each felt it, but things were messy and complicated.

She would give anything to get that time back.

“Get him out of here.”

“No.” Her response is quick, final, and desperate. What the Time Masters are doing is awful, controlling every person who ever lived as though they’re nothing more than pawns in an elaborate game of chess. It needs to be stopped, but this can’t be the way. After everything they’ve been through, both separately and together, it can’t end here.

“Just do it.”

He’s pleading with her, and she can feel the moisture starting in her eyes as it sinks in that there is no other way. This is bigger than they are, and after leaving Mick to die once he isn’t about to do it again. It has to be him.

Stupid hero bastard.

She goes over to him, up the steps to The Oculus and presses her lips to his in a desperate kiss, trying to convey everything she never said into the action. When they finally have to part he holds her gaze, dragging out their last few seconds together before they have to be warriors again and she has to go.

Later, on the ship, with the ruins of The Oculus vanishing behind them Sara shuts herself in her room and yanks down the sleeve of her jacket. It will destroy her if she sees a flat line, but she has to know.

She let’s out a choked and startled sob as she falls to her knees, there is no flat line to greet her; there is nothing but the blank canvas of her skin.

They destroyed The Oculus, the Time Masters, and their control. They returned free will to the world. No more strings, no more destiny.

No more marks.


End file.
